Four-year-old conception of Harrison Urban Square by the project’s developers, Ironstate Development
The once underwhelming industrial center of Harrison, N.J. is back on track for its billion-dollar makeover, the New York Times reported.

With the slogan “Connect Here,” the city will look to draw residents to the new “Harrison
MetroCentre” by highlighting its proximity to Manhattan, Hoboken and Newark, as well as a
host of renovations and new housing projects.

This includes 275 new rental units in the Harrison Station apartment complex, developed by Ironstate Development and Pegasus Group adjacent to the 98-year-old
PATH station and within walking distance of the New York Red Bulls’ new soccer stadium. Complete with an
attended lobby, fitness center, outdoor pool, volleyball court and lounge, the building will start
leasing next month. [more]

Business is getting better, John Livingston, president of the Tishman Construction, told the New York Times in a recent Q & A. “And some of the evidence of that is that some very significant projects in the last few months have restarted. One is called Revel, a large casino in Atlantic City. The other is the International Gem Tower in the Diamond District. They started a number of years ago; each stopped for about 18 months and started up again in the last six months.” [more]

The city is mulling a $5.3 billion proposal to extend the No. 7 subway line into Secaucus after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie axed a planned Hudson River commuter rail tunnel that would have ended on West 34th Street in Manhattan. While the No. 7 extension plan wouldn’t be the direct New Jersey-to-New York City commute that some transportation advocates were hoping for (commuters would still have to transfer in Secaucus to NJ Transit lines) it would be about half as costly as the original plan, which Christie killed due to potential cost overruns. [more]

NJ Gov. Chris Christie, who cancelled the project last month

Amtrak and NJ Transit are in “exploratory” talks to resuscitate a plan to build another commuter rail tunnel between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, two weeks after the project was axed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie because of its cost. According to the Star-Ledger, the nine-mile, Secauacus-West 34th Street tunnel known as Access to the Region’s Core would take at least 20 years to build if the plan were to be revived by the transit groups. Christie cancelled the project last month citing cost overruns of up to $5 billion, and in doing so, he gave up the chance to receive $3 billion in federal funding and another $3 billion in funding from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The tunnel was originally supposed to be complete by 2018. Meanwhile, Amtrak has said it wants to have two more tunnels into New York Penn Station by 2030. “We do have a serious need for expanded transit into Manhattan, but riders shouldn’t hold their breath for this tunnel,” said transportation advocate Zoe Baldwin, of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. “We went off track when we canceled ARC.” [Star-Ledger]

[more]

The inspector general at the U.S. Department of Transportation has launched a probe into how government funds were used in some of the city’s largest transit projects, many of which have fallen years behind schedule and have been plagued by major cost overruns. The projects in question — the Second Avenue Subway, the Fulton Transit Center, the new PATH terminal and the Long Island Rail Road extension to Grand Central Terminal — have received $7 billion in federal funds, which were overseen by the Federal Transit Administration. The investigation, which began March 25 and is expected to last 10 months, will look into whether the FTA muddled its regulatory job and allowed the projects to stray so far from their original plans. The PATH terminal is a Port Authority project; the other three projects are backed by the Metropolitan Transit Authority. [Post]

Three companies have been awarded a $542 million contract to construct portions of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub. The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey named Skanska USA Civil Northeast, Granite Construction Northeast and Skanska USA Building as the recipients of the multimillion dollar contract yesterday, according to Globe St. The project will include the construction of the PATH train hall, four railway platforms and basic building systems like heating and cooling, plumbing and ventilation. This contract is, so far, the largest in the $3.2 billion transit center, which, according to city officials is likely to be completed in 2015.

The planned Ground Zero performing arts center has finally gotten the go-ahead from the city, and after a long debate over the facility’s location, officials confirmed last week that they’ve settled on the one originally proposed. Construction on the theater’s foundation, a $50 million project in the area between Fulton, Greenwich, Vesey and Washington streets, will begin next quarter, Crain’s reported. Plans ultimately call for a 1,000-seat performance space, which will be designed by Frank Gehry and run by the Joyce Theater, a dance organization. Although the work on the already-delayed underground foundation is now getting a jumpstart, construction on the building itself will have to wait until after the permanent transportation hub that will house a PATH station is finished, a project that will take at least another four years. By that time, the fundraising picture may be different; some peg costs for the performing arts center at around $500 million. “The city is not giving up, and the Joyce is not giving up, but the delays have now put us in an economic climate that will have a long-term systemic impact on funding,” said Norma Munn, chair of the New York City Arts Coalition. With that in mind, some are pushing to move the center to the site of the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street, where work could begin sooner and costs would be lower. [Crain’s]

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has decided against a proposal that would use Pier 42 as a staging area for World Trade Center construction. Under the plan, the Port Authority would have used the Lower East Side pier to store steel construction beams for the PATH transportation hub by the WTC site. According to the Downtown Express, the storage space would have blocked off waterfront space and required approximately 60 truck trips per day between the pier and the WTC construction area. Area residents balked at this prospect, Susan Stetzer, the Community Board 3 district manager, said. “We were extremely concerned,” Stetzer said. “It was more loss of access to the waterfront. It was more trucks going all the way through from one side of Manhattan to the other. It was beyond a tipping point.” As a result of community pressure, the Port Authority has decided to use a New Jersey contractor, which will deliver the beams on an as-needed basis.